while your head is spinning (hold tight, it's just beginning)
by thinkatory
Summary: Lysa Tully Arryn's story. Lysa/Petyr, Petyr/Catelyn. "This is it, the moment when he sees her, the moment when they will be spoken in the same breath from this point forward. They kiss and kiss and Lysa loves him, loves his ragged breaths and blasphemies, and loves his flagging cock and fierce control, his fingers tight in her hair. He calls her Catelyn when it's done."


The songs never talk about this, and that's why Lysa doesn't know for certain until much later. The songs don't talk about how dangerous love truly is in the heart of a woman, how it's less an arrow than wildfire, taking any provocation to set any strong emotion or tense situation aflame. The men are all driven mad by it, the women pursued, but ever since the first night she kissed Petyr and Petyr kissed Cat she's felt more the pursuer.

It grows worse, as the years go on, and the wine is more of an excuse than anything. Petyr draws them out into the night with a wineskin and kisses Cat until she pushes him away, laughing, and he beckons Lysa to him.

At first it's perfect misery, knowing that she is the excuse to let him kiss perfect Cat. Within six months, her strength resolves, and she understands. She's not the white hart from the songs. He is. He is, with his silver tongue and clever knowing looks. He'll be a lord of more than the Fingers one day, and she knows she will be by his side.

She's just a girl, as her father says, dismisses her, so often. Girls like her become ladies, they become mothers and matriarchs and important political figures, more than just fine dresses and exquisitely braided hair and nodding and smiling to whatever the lord husband or father might say. She may only be thirteen years of age but she knows these things, she knows them from watching Cat and the lordlings who come to woo her, the way her older sister speaks kindly but firmly and lets no compliments turn her head.

Cat will not marry Petyr, and that's all that matters. She can marry the Stranger, for all Lysa cares.

Petyr is hers.

* * *

The truth is, it's complete agony. Edmure is too young to comprehend fully but still has his ideas and suspicions of Petyr, Cat is oblivious in the worst possible way to everything going on, and Father would never understand. Petyr himself treats her like one of the stewards' daughters at best or a piece of furniture at worst.

They're reveling, though, in the wake of a visit from Walder Frey and his many children and wives. They're halfway through the wine they've brought when Cat starts to giggle. "To think that the Late Lord Frey thinks I would marry - _well_ \- "

"Oh, Cat," Petyr says, deeply amused, "the man has a bridge. How could you resist a man with a bridge?"

"I wouldn't marry him!" Cat insists, scandalized but giggling.

"Oh I certainly hope not," Lysa laughs. "How disgusting!"

"You'll marry well," Petyr says to Cat, and reaches for her hand, casually grazing her fingertips with his. "You'll make a lord very happy one day."

"I will try," Cat concedes, "but if he's a Bolton I can make no promises. I haven't the stomach for flayed men."

"It's said Casterly Rock is looking for a match for Jaime Lannister," Lysa speaks up. "He's supposed to be quite handsome."

"And formidable," Petyr says dryly.

"Are you jealous, Petyr?" Cat teases him.

Petyr's just looking at her, and oh, Lysa thinks it will be so sweet to turn his head away from Cat and back to her, a victory that no knight could match. "Always," he says, warmly sarcastic, and moves to kiss her. Cat shifts away, and laughs. "Cat," he murmurs, his hand lowering from her face.

"Petyr, no more games," Cat says, chiding, but not unkindly, and takes his hand in hers. "We're no longer children."

"Of course," he says softly, certainly, and Lysa smiles, to herself, for just a moment. She closes her fingers against her palm and imagines his hand in hers as he downs more wine and excuses himself from the ladies' company.

"Boys," Cat sighs. "They will sooner bed you than wed you, or anything else."

"He is a good man, Cat," Lysa points out, a cursory effort at best. "You would be lucky to have him."

"It would be like marrying Edmure," Cat dismisses. "He's young and loyal but foolish and naive."

"I suppose," Lysa lies, letting the subject drop and the wineskin slip from her hand. Cat begins to speak, and her eyelids droop; she barely hears any of it, and murmurs brief sounds and words of assent in a half-awake state, until she loses interest entirely and dreams about the constellations in the sky.

"Lysa? Lysa, oh, good gods." Cat touches her face, and Lysa blinks sleep from her eyes. "You always drink too much."

"Lecturing me now?" Lysa returns. "You're not my mother."

Cat's face hardens, and Lysa sighs, holding up her hands. "I'm sorry. I can barely keep my eyelids open, Cat. Help me up?"

"Oh, sister," Cat sighs, and helps her to her feet. "Try not to sleep too late, and keep from getting sick. You know how Father disapproves."

"Right," Lysa says, and wavers on her feet. "I can try. But we can't all be as perfect as you,." She offers Cat a small smile and turns away, savoring the stung and wounded expression as she goes back into the castle.

Lysa has to hide from knights and a sleepwalking Edmure but steals her way up to Petyr's room soon enough, where he has predictably sequestered himself with casks of wine and is so far into his cups he may not be able to spin such beautiful words and tales for her. She sheds her dress, wearing only her slip as she climbs onto the bed to kiss him awake, once and again.

"Petyr," she murmurs, and runs a hand down his chest. "I'm here for you, Petyr. It's all right."

He strokes her arm, touches her hair, looks at it in wonder, and pulls her down with a gentle tug at her neck for another kiss, more passionate than she's ever been blessed by the gods to receive from him or any other boy. This is it, the moment when he sees her, the moment when they will be spoken in the same breath from this point forward. They kiss and kiss and Lysa loves him, loves his ragged breaths and blasphemies, and loves his flagging cock and fierce control, his fingers tight in her hair.

He calls her Catelyn when it's done.

The fire in her belly, the desire and the elation, it all threatens to sputter out and leave her cold and in the dark. She stares at the ceiling above, until she can believe the things she tells herself.

There is no easy road for love, none worth earning. He will learn the meaning of love when he sees what Lysa has done for him, suffered for him, and he will return it tenfold.

* * *

Brandon Stark is beautiful. He is everything a lord should be, and Lysa can barely stand to look at him for longer than a moment because it's frankly embarrassing. He's so _northern_ ; for the first time, she can understand why there were Kings in the North centuries before. He does look a king, even if that's treason to speak aloud.

Cat seems just as swept away by the idea of the betrothal, and is quiet and demure throughout his visit, gracious and smiling at the kiss on her hand in parting at the feast as though he is any other suitor. Lysa sees right through it, and so does Petyr.

Lysa can't get close to either of them. She's saddled with Edmure and the younger Stark boys who came alongside Brandon; the elder brother, Ned, is silent as a crypt except to answer yes or no or fact-based questions, while Benjen befriends Edmure quickly and leads him off to leave Lysa to coax conversation out of the nervous Eddard.

Lovely. She gets him to speak about horses and swords and then he's more keen, and Lysa tunes him out. He is not half the man his brother is.

Eventually Eddard and his younger brother depart with a steward and company, and it's only a day and a half more before all of the wolves leave Riverrun behind, for now. Brandon, his father, and Lysa's father are in deep discussion, and Lysa watches her sister's likely betrothed with aimless lovesickness, when Petyr joins her outside of the window.

"It's going to happen, isn't it?" he asks.

"Yes," she says, and glances at him. His face reveals nothing of what could be going on inside of his head. "She was never going to stay, Petyr."

Just in that moment, something changes in his face, something hard and uncomely, and Lysa withdraws, but Petyr just turns to her and smiles. "I know," he says, simply. "I beg your leave, Lady Lysa."

"Of course, Petyr," she says, faltering, as he leaves.

Something has happened, but nothing will change.

(Will it?)

* * *

The betrothal is announced, and Brandon is smiling, and Cat's warm and demure beside him, right up until it happens.

The one thing Lysa has to credit Petyr with, even as he breaks her heart and risks and ruins his own life, is that he has managed to surprise everyone present. From the moment he steps forward and pronounces the words, "Brandon Stark, I challenge you for the Lady Catelyn's hand in marriage," the now audience is too in shock to do anything but briefly laugh or stand in wonder.

Cat's head is still on her shoulders, and she pulls Petyr aside, begs him in whispers to set aside this madness and leave before things get worse, but he tells her firmly that it will all turn out fine, that he will fight for her. She tries to excuse him to Brandon, who watches with an impassive expression, and Lysa wishes in a vicious moment that she could shove Cat to the ground and take Petyr away to the shining waters of the Trident with a cask of wine and no Cat, ever again.

But Petyr steps forward and receives a sword, and there is no way she can look away, if this is how her beloved dies at the hands of a lordling whose manner and path have come too easily.

It is the furthest thing from a duel or combat that two men with swords can be. Each sword blow that Brandon sends Petyr's way as he advances makes Petyr's hands tremble, but he holds firm, until Brandon shoves him and he loses his footing. The sword clatters to the ground, and Petyr scrambles up, grabs the hilt, and raises it to tap Brandon's away from him.

Brandon smiles, just a bit wickedly, and Lysa's insides turn to wrenching ice as she realizes the wolf is just toying with him. Petyr tries to fight, Cat calls to him, and Lysa goes to her side to grab her wrist and silence her - _this is all you, Cat, this is your poison, you'll be the death of him_ , she wishes she could say - then Brandon shoves him to the ground again without any apparent effort, and presses his blade to Petyr's throat.

"If you're going to do it," Petyr says softly, "do it."

Brandon doesn't hesitate, then. As the blade bites through Petyr's chest and blood starts to bloom from the lengthening wound Lysa starts screaming and she can't stop, and Cat is screaming, too, and then she runs to Brandon's side and it's over, though Petyr is bleeding, bleeding, dying.

Lysa hears nothing of the conversation, from where she kneels on the ground all sobs and incoherent prayers to the Mother and the Stranger; she only hears the sword go back in its sheath and Brandon walking away, then she's screaming "Help, help, someone help him! Oh, Petyr!"

She's at his side before she realizes it, she holds his hand and he mumbles nonsense, then he sees her and he says, "Lysa," clear as day, and she breaks down into fresh tears again.

She doesn't leave his side then, or again, even though her father needles her and presses her to keep her distance. Baelish can't stay, Baelish has overstayed his welcome and made a fool of himself. Lysa doesn't care. He's seen her, now. He knows. This is what it took to purge the poison of Cat's charms from him, all the leeches and bleeding and milk of the poppy.

When they're alone as she sits at his bedside, she tells him she loves him, every day. On the tenth day, he looks up at her with a question in his eyes that could mean only one thing, and she answers him by carefully straddling his hips and tracing her finger down his bandages.

"Are you sure, my love?" she asks, gently. "It could hurt."

"Pain is irrelevant," Petyr says, "in the pursuit of pleasure." The look he gives her sets her aflame with need, and she kisses him fervently, taking care not to jar his injuries or cause him undue pain.

The songs make sense, now. Before, her feelings for him were desperate sparks in search of kindling to devour. Now they are a well-tended fire, a thing of comfort, still dangerous but a blessing from the gods nevertheless.

She knows Petyr will be made to leave, when Petyr is no longer asked after by name or otherwise. Where he goes, she goes. She made that decision some time ago.

"Wait for me," she murmurs to Petyr the night before he has to leave, and he pushes her against the wall, her skirts up against her thighs, and she stifles her moans by biting into the fabric of his tunic. He kisses her slow and deliberately once he's finished inside of her, and she can't imagine a better feeling than this, even when he turns his back on her to lace his breeches and takes his leave.

The next day, she mourns his farewell, but smiles.

Petyr would be proud of her. For once, she's the one with a plan.

* * *

The opportunity arrives two months later, when it's undeniably true.

"You must let me go with him, Father," Lysa snaps, and Hoster is genuinely offended until she goes on, nastily, "unless you want a Riverlands bastard with Tully blood lurking to take your castle from a legitimate grandchild."

"Lysa," Hoster says, warning, and his anger so slow to burn has come to a peak with all of her fears and insistences and fierce arguments. "Are you telling me you have a bastard in your belly from that pathetic excuse for a lord's son?"

"It won't be a bastard if you let me marry him," she says, self-satisfied, victorious. "I'll be Lady Baelish and do no dishonor to our name - Father, you must let me - I _will_ raise a bastard if you don't."

"You _will not_ ," Hoster insists, and grabs her by the shoulders. "Lysa - I cannot believe I have raised such a fool of a girl. You were taken in by this boy, I can at least remain grateful that Catelyn has something between her ears so her virtue remains untouched - but you - you will not be lost to some boy from the Fingers."

"Father, let me go," Lysa shouts; she's frightened, now, and she knows why but she doesn't want to think about it. "Please, you know I'm right, this would be for the best, and - "

Hoster pushes her away, just slightly, and stares at her, his gaze cold and hard. "You will not have that baby," he says evenly, "and you will not marry that boy. Go to the maester's." He points. "Wait for me."

Lysa is shaking. "Father - please, no. Please - "

"Go," Hoster roars at her, and Lysa flees, in tears and hysterics. There is no one to run to, no hopes to set her heart on. Her ravens never reach Petyr, his never reach her. They are a tragedy, not a love story.

When she drinks the moon tea, the heat spreads warmth through her chest, but in her heart and mind it feels like ice is creeping and deepening throughout her like the winter-frozen river, and by the end her heart is behind three inches of ice, and nothing hurts, besides the cold and the loneliness.

* * *

Jon Arryn is old. Jon Arryn is powerful, and if Lysa has learned one thing from her time with Petyr it's that by spending time with those you want to be, you learn how to be and eventually become one of them. Petyr will be powerful, and all she can allow herself to want is Petyr.

Then there's Robert.

Robert is beautiful. He is what Lysa had hoped for with every pregnancy, with every attempt at conception. She has always wanted to be a mother, to have many children who could make her and their father proud. This is not the man whose children she hoped to bear, whose name she hoped to glorify, but this is her son, her son, no matter if he is an Arryn of the Vale.

No one will break her from her cause. She will have the family that was taken from her so long ago. The only time she feels anything at all is with Robert in her arms, with Petyr in her sight, and it's too overwhelmingly perfect and true to deny.

Petyr explains, his words soft in her ear, his fingers in her hair. Her tasks are simple. All she needs to do is tell a story, sing a song like the birds in the Eyrie, and let it echo.

"And then I will be yours, my love?" she asks him, delicately.

"Until death parts us," he promises, and kisses her knuckles.

She closes her eyes, and smiles, feeling like a Tully for the first time since she can remember. _Family. Duty. Honor._ She will do right by all of those words, and pay back those who have hurt her thricefold. It is the only course ahead, and she will not flinch, not with family by her side.


End file.
